Savvas Liasis

Easybroker International is particularly targeting the Middle East, and the service owes its origin to the demands of clients from this region. For ceo Savvas Liasis spent the first 12 years of his life as a child in Oman, and has longstanding business connections with Oman and the UAE.

'I will be visiting the Gulf at the start of April to introduce Easybroker.com,' he says. 'This is not another online brokerage for the day trader but specifically designed for retail and trade clients. We already have a lot of interest from the GCC and I will be meeting potential customers'.

It is hard not to be impressed by the Easybroker.com product. Clients have access to 70 stock markets around the world, although only Cairo in the Middle East, and can trade in one currency. That means that Easybroker.com is hedging the currency risk, itself a very useful facility for the smaller operator.

'Our trading is mainly on T+3 settlement, but as soon as something is sold an account is credited and that money can be invested straight away,' explains Mr Liasis, whose company has no connection with the Easyjet empire also owned by a fellow Greek Cypriot.

'The retail broking market is clogged and we are not another Charles Schwab,' he says. 'We are strictly a business-to-business broker.

'Because we deal in bulk we can offer very competitive rates. In the UK and US there is no difference between us and local brokers, we are equal or lower than European brokers and the same as local brokers in Asia. But this is a premium service with one account in one currency which nobody else can provide.

'A single operator would have to open accounts with different brokers in all these markets and trade in the local currency. We make it all much easier'.

On the research side, easybroker.com will be offering portfolio analysis and portfolio re-weighting, and has struck a deal with Reuters to provide live market data when requested by the client. Easybroker International is FSA approved and run by a 30-strong team from London

But it has to be admitted that the global stock market climate has changed a good deal since Easybroker.com started to develop its systems three years ago. Has the company not missed this particular boat?

'We don't think so,' says Mr Liasis who rests his faith on a unique service and the delivery of a complex trading platform in a simple solution. It could be, after all that this is the right system to catch the rebound in global equity markets, and his product will certainly be reviewed with interest by brokers and institutions in the Middle East.